Torchlight: Review (XBLA)

Torchlight is a top down hack and slash RPG/Adventure game developed by runic Games and was released for Windows in October 2009. Xbox 360 owners are now having the esteemed privilege of getting to play Torchlight on the XBLA.

Torchlight is a mining town in world where a mysterious gem known as Ember is renowned for granting magic abilities. Torchlight’s mines have a whole lot of ember that is being corrupted by an unknown anomaly. You will be exploring the mines and dungeons below to stop the corruption and help many people along the way. You can play as three classes. You choose from Destroyer, who is a lone warrior wandering the lands. The Alchemist, who is a spell caster amazed by the Ember underneath Torchlight and can cast spells from a specially woven glove. Last, but not least The Vanquisher, who is on a mission investigating Torchlight and is a specialist in ranges weapons. I done my review play through as The Destroyer. I was not disappointed.

When starting the game you choose your class and what pet companion will travel along with you. From there you arrive at Torchlight and quickly find something afoot. Before you know it you are fighting zombies, demons, trolls and every other conceivable enemy you can thing of for this genre of game. The control style is simple and easy to pick up and play. You attack with X and can map your abilities/spells to buttons that you find appropriate for the way you need to play. You can gain new abilities and learn certain spells no matter what the class through the skill tree. Everything from class specials like duel wielding to learning a fireball. A very easy and simplistic way to rank up and specialize your character that anyone can understand no matter if you are a casual gamer or someone who lives in the genre, it simply works and has a good feel to it.

As you begin to play the game you quickly realize just how in depth the game goes with every aspect that you would want in a RPG title. While making your way through the main story and any side quest you may decide to take you will find loads of loot. Weapons, armour, rings, necklaces and pieces of Ember that you may socket into weapon, armour and jewelery that you may find and will give the items special abilities. The game makes a good habit of giving you great pick ups through out, but you will find your self spending just as much gold enchanting items. Because when the item actually enchants correctly it will be a game changer with weapons and for that matter armour too.

The look of the game is really sharp and smooth. Very good textures and surprisingly considering in the later levels of the game you have such a huge amount of enemies on screen at one time, the frame rate does not ever really become and issue. Also I never had problem during play of the camera being an issue, even when in some what of a tight space. All this with the joys of a game actually being worth the money you pay for it in terms of length. I went though the main story and none minimum side quest, and it still took me around 6 hours to beat. Even after that you may go back through the mines and continue to quest for loot and XP. You mix these element with playing through the game with all the available classes and you have plenty of game to keep you entertained.

The only thing missing from an otherwise perfect game is the addition of LIVE co-op. It seems like such a perfect platform for the feature it seems a shame not to have it present. On the other hand, I can’t really hold this against the game as it stands up just as well if not better without a multiplayer component.

Torchlight supports Avatar Awards and the achievements are pretty easy to come by as you will gain all of them with game progression and questing. At 1200 MS points this port from the PC to the XBLA is worth every penny and will quickly become the RPG of the XBLA. I would recommend that anyone that has had the slightest interest in this game or the RPG genre itself to give Torchlight a try. You will not regret it.